It was a loonngg travel day today (Wednesday) and it didn’t get off to a good start…

I don’t know what it is about the truck tires; they must have nail magnets inside 🙁  I did my morning PMCS, (that’s Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services), for you non-military types, and found the right rear tire pressure at 28 psi.  The tire pressure should be at 35-40 psi.

When we arrived yesterday evening at the Roswell Elks Lodge, we were able to pull right into a site without disconnecting the truck.  So this morning; after we pressed buttons to raise the jacks and pull-in the slides; we just towed it over to the local Discount Tire in Roswell, NM.

The technician pulled off the tire and immediately identified a nail stuck through the tread.  This is the third time we’ve picked up a nail!  Luckily, they didn’t charge us for the repair.  Discount Tires will continue to have our business 🙂

After the ~hour long delay to get the tire fixed; we continued north on the shortest route towards Colorado Springs.  We have 439 miles to travel today!  Stilla is anxious to get back to see our daughters and grandson, plus we need to do something to help get the house sold.  The house has been on the market now for over 90 days, and now that the weather is getting nicer, we are finally starting to see more showings.  So, we probably need to work on the lawn; maybe fill the hot tub; de-winterize the sprinkler system, etc.,

Here’s some pics of the seemingly endless highway…

Once we got on I-25, Stilla took over the drivers seat for a while.

Yah… this is the life, I should let her drive more often 🙂

Of course as soon as she took over, we had to go through a long construction zone.  She hates this… and it always seems to happen when she drives, which isn’t too often, but she did just fine.  No cones were killed in the making of this blog post 🙂

Little Coach didn’t even seem to mind Mom’s driving too much.

We stopped for fuel at Russell’s Truck Stop near Springer, NM.  I always like stopping here because they have classic cars on display.  They switch them out every so often so there’s always something new.

I took back over the driving duties and little Coach took his usual spot on Mommy’s lap again.

We started to see some snow as we got close to Raton Pass.

It looked like the winter weather has been doing a number on the highway…  we had to dodge quite a few potholes and notice the fallen rocks:

Yup… that’s snow on the side of the highway… haven’t seen that in a few months 😐

Leaving New Mexico sign…

and the Welcome to Colorado sign.

Then we got another “Welcome to Colorado” in the form of a rock hitting the windshield!  A little red pickup sans mud flaps passed us shortly after crossing into Colorado, and “Wham” we have  something new to fix now…

We pressed on.

Nice rearview mirror pic.  There’s snow in ‘them-there’ mountains.

And we finally rolled into Colorado Springs just as the sun was going down over Pikes Peak.  Whew… 440 miles today!

I had called ahead to reserve a spot at the Colorado Springs Elks Lodge #309.  We were able to get one of the more desirable spots along the inner fence-line facing the pool.  The Elks 309 website says the following about their RV Parking: “13 Hook-ups on a black top surface. Electric (30 & 20 A) available to all. Water available during non-freezing weather. Water faucet always available at the lodge building. Dump station on site. $15 per night ($5-dry camping) No reservations, first come first serve. Plenty of dry camping area.”

Our spot has 30-Amp electric, water, and a small diameter (PVC) sewer line that runs above ground.  We’ll have to use a macerator to use the sewer, unless we drive over to the on-site dump station.  For those that may not know; a macerator chops up the waste and reduces it to allow flow through a standard-size garden hose.

View of Pikes Peak this morning over the Coach.

And here’s another picture of the windshield rock chip.  I put one of those round protective stickers on it that we got from RV Glass Solutions when we had new windshields put in a couple years ago while at the FMCA Rally in Gillette WY.  I suppose we’ll try to live with it for now as long as it doesn’t get any bigger or start to crack.

Here’s our view of the pool area out the front window, it’s still covered of course… we’re not in Arizona anymore 😐

So, we’re baack!  We’ll find the camp-host this morning (Thursday) and pay for a month in advance, which I hope is still a reasonable $350.

We’ve put over 4000 new miles on the Urban Escape Vehicle since we left in January.  We put the house on the market (January 10th) and departed Colorado for the SouthWest.

Some of you that read this blog may recall that we last came back here in October 2014 after our ~6000 mile tour of the Pacific NorthWest.  Click HERE for my blog post from the 1st of October 2014.  We came back then for two reasons: 1) Our son William was coming to visit from Germany, and 2) Our renters had stopped making payments.  So we spent the first couple weeks enjoying time with our son and the next couple/few months dealing with the renters and working on the house to get it on the market.  Hopefully we can get it sold here soon.

Regardless of the house situation – we look forward to catching up with family and friends while we’re here.  It’ll be nice to see the kids, grandson, my Dad/Stepmom, etc.,

Stay tuned…